CDC recommends Pfizer booster shots for older and high-risk Americans

The CDC has endorsed an independent advisory panel's recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has endorsed an independent advisory panel's recommendation for seniors and other medically vulnerable Americans to get a booster dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, six months after their second dose.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, also partially overruled her agency's advisory panel in a notable departure, adding a recommendation for a third dose for people who are considered high risk due to where they work -- a group which the panel rejected in its recommendation. Some panelists said that without further data, they weren't comfortable with automatically including younger people because of their jobs.

In a statement announcing her decision late Thursday, Walensky pointed to the benefit versus risk analysis she had weighed, and data rapidly evolving.

"In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good," Walensky said. "While today’s action was an initial step related to booster shots, it will not distract from our most important focus of primary vaccination in the United States and around the world."